Virtual cardiotomy based on 3-D MRI for preoperative planning in congenital heart disease.
BACKGROUND
Patient-specific preoperative planning in complex congenital heart disease may be greatly facilitated by virtual cardiotomy. Surgeons can perform an unlimited number of surgical incisions on a virtual 3-D reconstruction to evaluate the feasibility of different surgical strategies.


OBJECTIVE
To quantitatively evaluate the quality of the underlying imaging data and the accuracy of the corresponding segmentation, and to qualitatively evaluate the feasibility of virtual cardiotomy.


METHODS
A whole-heart MRI sequence was applied in 42 children with congenital heart disease (age 3 +/- 3 years, weight 13 +/- 9 kg, heart rate 96 +/- 21 bpm). Image quality was graded 1-4 (diagnostic image quality > or =2) by two independent blinded observers. In patients with diagnostic image quality the segmentation quality was also graded 1-4 (4 no discrepancies, 1 misleading error).


RESULTS
The average image quality score was 2.7 - sufficient for virtual reconstruction in 35 of 38 patients (92%) older than 1 month. Segmentation time was 59 +/- 10 min (average quality score 3.5). Virtual cardiotomy was performed in 19 patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Accurate virtual reconstructions of patient-specific cardiac anatomy can be produced in less than 1 h from 3-D MRI. The presented work thus introduces a new, clinically feasible noninvasive technique for improved preoperative planning in complex cases of congenital heart disease.
Sørensen
Thomas Sangild
TS
Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Aabogade 34, 8200, Aarhus N, Denmark. sangild@cs.au.dk
Beerbaum
Philipp
P
Mosegaard
Jesper
J
Rasmusson
Allan
A
Schaeffter
Tobias
T
Austin
Conal
C
Razavi
Reza
R
Greil
Gerald Franz
GF
D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003287:Contrast Media; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D015588:Observer Variation; D011300:Preoperative Care / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014584:User-Computer Interface
D003287:Contrast Media